Republican Agenda
REPUBLICAN AGENDA -- (House of Representatives - June 23, 2005)
Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman is very kind, and I thank her for yielding to me.
I too want to join the many who have expressed their gratitude for what she is doing here tonight. But really more importantly, if I may, I want to thank her for her incredible, passionate leadership particularly on fighting waste, fraud, and abuse that is, unfortunately, still rampant in the Federal budget. She has been such a champion, and it has been a privilege for me to learn from her, see how she does it, and she has been extremely effective. So it is truly just wonderful to see how she works, and it is wonderful that she is giving this Special Order to speak about issues that are important to the United States of America.
I was listening to the honorable gentlewoman from North Carolina, and she was talking about things that have happened in this Chamber. One of the things that is important is to highlight that it is not only legislation that we have passed here, but it is legislation, not for the sake of passing legislation, it is legislation that has had real, concrete, positive results for the American people. Let us look at some of the results; more than just the legislation, but the results of that legislation.
Look at, for example, the growth in the GDP, the gross domestic product. This is after 9/11. This is after the Internet bubble burst. This is after the recession that President Bush inherited when he first got elected. Despite all that, because of legislation that the President led on and that this Congress passed, the GDP, the growth of the economy, has been spectacular. Mr. Speaker, we have had 14 consecutive quarters of real growth in the economy, a 3.5 rate in the first quarter of this year, a 3.5 percent increase in the GDP. Again, 14 consecutive quarters of real growth, despite what this Congress and our President found itself dealing with after 9/11.
Look at payroll employment. It rose by 2.2 million jobs during 2004; 2.2 million jobs that would be unemployed if it was not for the policies of this Congress, of this majority, and of the President of the United States. Mr. Speaker, 3.5 million jobs over the past 24 months. Ask those hard-working Americans who now have jobs if the policies that this Congress has pursued and passed have not worked for them. They have worked for them, and we are grateful for the President's leadership. I think we have to always remind ourselves that with a little bit of help, with a few Democrats, but with the leadership of the Speaker of the House and the Majority party, great things have happened for our country, for our working men and women in our great country.
Look at, again, the fact that unemployment today, right now, is lower than it was, than the average of the 1970s, the decade of the 1980s and, yes, even lower than the decade of the 1990s. Hard to believe that that is possible, after 9/11, after the scandals on Wall Street, after the bubble-burst of the Internet. Again, that is because of the leadership of our President and because of the leadership of this House.
The homeownership rate is at record levels. More people own homes than ever in the history of our country and, by the way, if we look at minority homeownership also, that is at record levels.
Now, we have more to do. We have more to do, still, and we are working hard to do even more. All of us are concerned about the deficit. We have to reduce the size of the deficit. We know that the President has said, and he has pledged to cut the deficit in half over the next five years. The budget that this House passed does just that in a responsible fashion. It gets a handle on the deficit. It is going to reduce the deficit in half. We do that by controlling spending.
Hey, folks, this is not rocket science. If you are spending too much money, that is why you have a deficit, hey, what do you do? Spend less. Not rocket science. Well, that is what we are doing.
But let me tell my colleagues what our friends in the Democratic Party have proposed as their solution to control the deficit. We hear them here on the Floor of the House continuously, and even in the Senate, talking about, oh, the deficit is too high. But then, what do they propose? They propose billions and billions and billions of dollars in additional spending, which would go directly to increase the size of the deficit. They have done so publicly. They have done so with an amendment in the Committee on the Budget on which I have the honor of serving and also here on the Floor of the House. They cannot have it both ways. They cannot be concerned about the deficit and then propose billions and billions of dollars of additional spending in the Federal budget, spending of Federal dollars.
The President, by the way, has done a great job in looking for programs that are not working. I do not think again it takes a rocket scientist to understand that there are Federal programs that frankly are just not doing that well, that are just wasting the taxpayers' money. Once again, I have to repeat what I said in the beginning. I want to thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) for her efforts, particularly in trying to fight waste in the Federal Government.
The President has also done a great job. He has created this assessment tool called PART. What he has done is he has gone through every single area of the Federal budget, the Federal Government looking for things that can be reduced or eliminated because they are not needed, not doing a good job, because there are other programs that are better and less expensive. He has proposed eliminating a number of programs and to shift that money to programs that do work.
We also have to be very proud of the job that the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations is doing, the honorable gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis). He has actually cut an incredible amount of those duplicative, those programs that do not work, that are proven money-wasters, and has shifted those funds to programs that do work. I think, again, we are doing some good things. We do get every once in a while, a few, a couple, one or two, sometimes three or four, and sometimes many more, Democrats who come on board and help us with these efforts. But, unfortunately, most of the heavy lifting to cut waste, to reduce the deficit, to cut taxes, to incentivize the economy has been done with no help from the opposition party. But, fortunately, we have been able to pass those issues, and that is why the economy is doing as well as it is doing, and that is why millions of Americans that otherwise would have been unemployed now have jobs.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, I just want to end with a separate thought. It is always difficult, and I think an honor and a privilege, to listen to the names of our fallen heroes, and we had that tonight, we heard it a little while ago, and I think it is always something that we have to again thank them, thank their families, and thank God that there are heroes like them that are willing to put even their lives on the line to protect our freedoms. I have to say that I was very pleased to see Members of this House come on to this floor to mention the names of our heroes with respect.
That, unfortunately, contrasts so dramatically, sadly, with the statements by a member of the other party of the U.S. Senate. He recently had to apologize because he compared our troops, our men and women in uniform, compared them to the Nazis, to the Soviets and their gulags, to that mad assassin, crazy regime of Pol Pot in Cambodia, those regimes that killed people as a policy, assassinated people. And for anybody, anybody to even mention our troops, our men and women in uniform in that same breath as the Soviet gulags, Pol Pot, or the Nazis is, frankly, totally unacceptable. I guess he was comparing the hard work of our brave men and women in uniform to Nazis. Is he equating the treatment of innocent victims in the concentration camps or in the gulags to the humane treatment that terrorists are getting in Guantanamo at the hands of our troops? Again, it is totally unacceptable.
We accept his apology, after he was forced to apologize, even though he first did not want to. We are talking about the second highest ranking Democrat in the U.S. Senate who said those things. So we will accept his apology. I think, though, that we should also demand his resignation from that position of leadership, a position of leadership, the second highest ranking leader, democratic leader in the Senate, who compared our troops to the Nazis, to the Soviet gulags, and to Pol Pot.
So that is why, Mr. Speaker, I have to tell my colleagues that I was very pleased with coming here tonight and listening in contrast to the names of our fallen heroes. That is the way we should refer to our troops as heroes, as men and women who guarantee the peace not only of the United States of America, but of the entire world. They are heroes that will never be forgotten. And I, for one, have to tell my colleagues, as I will also never forget those who insult our heroes, who compare them to Nazis; I will never forget that either.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) for her great leadership, for her impassioned leadership and again, in particular, I thank her for really teaching us a lesson as to what it means to be passionate, fighting for the taxpayer against fraud, waste, and abuse in the Federal budget.
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